SouthCoast Serves kicks off week of community service projects

Tuesday

Jan 18, 2011 at 12:01 AMJan 18, 2011 at 8:15 AM

In celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy of service, SouthCoast Serves — a collaborative of more than 35 nonprofits based at UMass Dartmouth — kicked off a week of community service projects.

CURT BROWN

NEW BEDFORD — In celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy of service, SouthCoast Serves — a collaborative of more than 35 nonprofits based at UMass Dartmouth — on Monday kicked off a week of community service projects across Bristol County.

The kick-off event was held at Gifts to Give, 21 Cove St., and included Dr. Jean F. MacCormack, chancellor of UMass Dartmouth; U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass; Miss New Bedford Taylor Kinzler of Lakeville, whose platform is service; and a service rally with a community service-related cheer by the New Bedford High School cheerleading squad.

The projects themselves stretch from New Bedford to Dartmouth to Fall River and vary from drawing friendship cards that will be sent to homeless children to making a quilt for a serviceman serving in harm's way overseas to pulling out invasive plants at Allen's Pond.

"SouthCoast Serves' mission is to build an infrastructure and promote service as a way to meet the needs of the community," according to Deirdre Healy, associate director of the Center for Civic Engagement at UMD.

"We want to encourage people to volunteer and push past their own comfort zone and volunteer someplace where they would not normally volunteer," said Sarah Coyne, a 26-year-old AmeriCorp Vista volunteer who is spending a year working on service projects across SouthCoast.

Coyne, of Manchester, Conn., is a 2006 graduate of the University of Connecticut who decided after working three years as a library technician in her hometown that she wanted to give back.

Senior citizens and staff members from Coastline Elderly Services will read stories about King today at HarbOUR House, a family shelter in New Bedford.

Throughout the week, children at the New Bedford Boys & Girls Club will make cards from construction paper with positive and uplifting messages for other children.

Coyne said the idea is the brainchild of Haley Burgess, a high school senior in Attleboro who believed cards made by children would brighten the lives of children in shelters, orphanages and hospitals.

Coyne said their goal is to have 75 cards, which will be sent to Burgess for distribution.

On Wednesday, former prisoners who are working their way back into society will be at the Dartmouth YMCA to prepare potted plants that will be transplanted in the spring as part of the Y's annual Share the Harvest Program.

Also Wednesday, Coyne said, students from the Kuss Middle School in Fall River will be making a quilt that will be sent to a serviceman overseas as part of Operation Quiet Comfort.

On Thursday, speakers from the Community Economic Development Center in New Bedford will talk with students at New Bedford High School about the volunteer income tax assistance program.

"It's an effort to let them know the assistance is available, free of charge, when they prepare their taxes," Coyne said.

Six veterans from the Veterans' Transition House in New Bedford will do the preparation work for a mural that will be painted in the lobby of the South Coastal Counties Legal Services building, Granite Street, Fall River, on Friday. Coyne said the veterans will check for any defects in the wall and paint it blue. On Saturday morning, she said, students from the Morton Middle School and UMass Dartmouth will paint the mural.

Students from YouthBuild in New Bedford are planning to pull invasive weed species at Allen's Pond in Dartmouth on Friday, according to Coyne.